Live TV and internet coverage allowed the nation to feel grubby as the Mandybill was shunted through the House of Commons late last night. The government’s replacement for Clause 18 – a catch-all illiberal web-blocking measure that few in the music business ever expected to survive – was approved, and the photographers cemented …

The pain is calling, oh Mandy

And Mandy's already sweet retirement plan gets alot bigger.

Thanks for selling our rights down the river Lord Mandelson no-one voted for you anyway, welcome to encrypted P2P and in fact encrypted web traffic because who in their right mind wants private information deep packet inspected

The internet arms race takes another step forward and all the MPs who voted this through have no idea whats it all about.

Re: To those downvoters...

The "...and you're out" of Three Strikes has gone. Permanent disconnections will not be a sanction.

And since we don't know how many "strikes", Ofcom will choose to implement (after a year's consultation) then it's daft to even think in terms of Strikes or Threes. It's able to order some kind of technical measure, that's all.

That's quite a victory from three years ago, people prefer want to keep the myth alive because it suits them. Keeps the donations rolling in.

Irony

I find it slightly ironic that someone described as being "on our side" by a certain industry figure and proponent of the Bill (who shall remain nameless) is blaming the ORG who at least attempted to stop the unpleasant parts of it from going through (whether or not their methods were appropriate). Perhaps part of the failing of the ... well, you would call it "freetard", some might call it "copyright reform", "pirate" or "pro-rights" groups and movements is that they are so fractured; failing to unite and prevent a strong opposition.

It took a couple of weeks and quite a large campaign for 38degrees to raise the £20,000 they needed for their (perhaps badly-worded) advertisement and yet the "Creative Coalition" was able to get a much shinier one knocked up in a couple of days. While it is clear that there is strong support for these ideals, until they can be united, I think we will see more days like today.

Is it surprising that this Bill went through largely unchanged? No. [Although encouraging that at least Clause 43 and the extended licensing scheme fell - something close to what you criticised Tom Watson for suggesting] That doesn't mean it wasn't disappointing. It does make a fitting end to this government, though, having a bill such as this forced through in the manner it was in the last hours of parliament.

On the other hand

"It took a couple of weeks and quite a large campaign for 38degrees to raise the £20,000 they needed for their (perhaps badly-worded) advertisement and yet the "Creative Coalition" was able to get a much shinier one knocked up in a couple of days"

Some might argue that the reason funding and organisation was so difficult is that that many of those who will be directly affected by clause 18 / revised clause 1 are the kinds of people who don't like paying for stuff?

On the other hand, Nominet and the ISPs had something to lose too,. but couldn't seem to get their voices heard.

I think the problem is that a lot of the argument was along the lines of "copyright is broken - stuff should be free"

From my won POV, I'd rather the argument had been - "Intellectual Property should be protected, but this bill is broken, and will not achieve the stated goal."

Sadly, with organisations like PPUK doing the rounds, that latter argument gets drowned out somewhat by the former.

cunts

Cunts - Seconded...

Any and all MPs canvassing on my doorstep will be asked one question - How did you vote on the digital economy bill. Any "yes" answer will be met with a swift slamming of the door, with the hope that it breaks their corrupt, Mandelson-supporting, face.

errrr yes, indeed

My tosspot MP

236 may have voted

But only about 10% of them were ever in the chamber. Ben Bradshaw who was in charge of the bill in the Commons couldn't even be bother to be there for the third reading because of a much more important commitment - appearing on Newsnight.

The sheer cuntitude of both front benches is almost beyond belief. But I'm sure they'll console themselves safe in the knowledge that David Geffen and Feargal Sharkey will be able to buy a new LearJet.

So who wants to bet how long it will be before someone in the media business is stupid enough to request a site be taken down because it might be used to infringe copyright at some point in the future?

Surely..

...you have to be over 18 to vote and your parents will want to speak to the politican while you rant away upstairs ripping off content on an encrypted way upstairs in your lair?

I do agree with you though Mike regarding the blocking sites of sites like WikiLeaks and future thought crime. While I don't like this bill at all, I can't see how the government could have reacted in any other way to the wall of cretinous 'new business modellism I want everything for freeness' that they were presented with from an unrepentant (and militant in their own cute little way) pirating population.

Wot, no statutory licensing?

Andrew, all this time, I’d honestly thought you’d been advocating compulsory licensing. That’s the only way I can see your vision of lawful, licensed and monetised file-sharing happening. With it, Virgin Media’s offering wouldn’t still be on the drawing board. It’s not a negative. It’s a positive. It would force things forward. And, in a few decades’ time, people would find it hard to think of copyright being any other way, just as there’s a failure to think beyond the copyright laws of today.

With regards Stop43, they had a much easier task. Even if you’d managed to convince the MPs that the quoted losses from the content industries are out by an order of magnitude, which they quite possibly are, even if you could convince them that the direct and indirect costs of clamping down on file-sharing will be similar to those true losses to the content industries, they’d still want extra legislation to hammer file-sharers.

That MPs could perceive of file-sharing as an exuberance of youth is important. Their stance is partially a moral one, brought on by envy. When we were young, we taped stuff off the radio and from vinyl records. And with vinyl, we got both the crackles from the record and the hiss from the tape – it’s all so unfair. We couldn’t infringe copyright so flagrantly when we were young, so the youth of today aren’t doing it either.

I still, however, agree with you about the Open Rights Group. There’s a touch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about them. While often a force for good, sometimes Americans wish they’d be a little less ‘helpful.’

Re: Wot, no statutory licensing?

The statutory/compulsory issue is a common confusion - not helped by the fact it means different things in different places.

Virgin's P2P service didn't need a compulsory license. It was all voluntary, created through agreements between private parties, acting in enlightened self-interest.

To make file sharing "legal", record companies agree to give up one of their exclusive rights, the right to make a copy of a sound recording, in exchange for an agreed share of the money. No law is needed, no rate board sets the price of music.

I'm guilty of advocating a statutory in the past to make p2p legal, as a quick fix, that's true. I now think it isn't far on a lot of people, and the disadvantages and dangers far outweigh the advantages.

"Enlightened self-interest"

You'll have to go a long way to convince me there's much enlightened about self-interest. A lot of the problems our world faces today wouldn't be if people were capable of thinking beyond themselves. The "me and mine, and to hell with everyone else" attitude is [static].

Suffice it to say, regardless of the "rights" that content owners would have to hand over as part of something like a statutory licence, it may well be the only path forward. That isn't a freetard viewpoint, it's someone looking for balance in copyright.

Hey, I'm a content creator too. (Writer, not recording artist.) I have a day job as a sysadmin, but only because I don’t yet make enough writing to support myself full time. I have a vested interest in making sure that the “rights” of content creators trump those of everyone else’s.

That said, I still think that we can’t go backwards; the internet’s power of distribution simply changes the game. We need to sit down and rethink intellectual property from top to bottom; the rights of content creators and of regular citizens need to be considered. What needs to occur to encourage more content to be created? What needs to occur to allow regular citizens convenient (but not necessarily ‘free’) access to the content that makes up their culture? What about educational, or satirical uses?

Once all these questions have been answered then you set the laws, and let the business interests involved adapt or die. The interests of content /owners/ is not relevant anymore because they all too often simply aren’t the content creators. People don’t exist to serve business. Business adapts to fill available niches in the economy or they die.

As a content creator, I feel that those who put their hard work into the creation of content need to be compensated for this time and effort. Without it, there is little incentive to continue creating content. By the same token, as a content consumer the current marketplace for content consumption is absolutely poisonous. Because of “enlightened self-interest” everyone involved wants an ever-increasing share of a diminishing pie. The folks at the top of the economy have been pulling money out of the system (with little if any reinvestment back into it) for decades. The folks who produce a widget, chunk of software or piece of content are under constant pressure to increase their profit more and more every year so that their stock values soar and yet more money can be pulled out of service.

The consumers simply don’t have any more money to give, which results in lower sales. This in turn is used to create a huge scare around “piracy is costing elevnteen squillion dollars!” (Not every download is a lost sale.) All of this is in turn used as a lovely excuse to grant more “rights” to content owners, and fewer to content creators and consumers.

I understand that you likely don’t agree with the above, Andrew. You will likely call me a freetard and be done with it; but I simply can’t let your comment about “enlightened self-interest” pass unchallenged. It is exactly this attitude which completely screwed up everything for everyone in content creation and distribution. What we need as a level-headed rethink, not all sides coming at this with nothing but their own self-interest in mind.

Both the putonomists and the freetards are completely, utterly and terminally wrong. Nothing that has existed prior will work. Forcing something on either side won’t work. It’s time for mediated negotiations between all interested parties, with a view to what’s best for the greatest number; and to hell with “me, me, me.”

You can all of you downvote the crap out of this post if you wish; I’ll just hold onto the faint hope that my ranting and raving has at least caused a few of you to think about your entrenched beliefs in this regard.

Thank you to anyone who bothered to read it this far, and have a good day.

Re: "Enlightened self-interest"

You don't sound like a Freetard to me (actually I know you're not), that's a very good summary of the situation Trevor.

I don't know where the phrase enlightened self-interest comes from. That wasn't me.

I would say that since neither of us has a crystal ball it may be worth waiting until the market develops. The music business hasn't made the fundamental supply side reforms it needs to make.

It's still difficult/impossible to get a music license if you make doorbells, or are a social networking site or a listings paper, for example. Tesco should be selling a P2P service you can subscribe to via sms. Most things that, could be tried have not been tried yet.

What worries me...

I don't expect them to be geeks, but surely they have access to professionals who can adequately brief them on the technology and how it actually works.

In addition to the examples cited in the article, one MP appeared to believe that on taking out a contract with an ISP, a subsequent change of address would be transparent and potentially unrecorded.

As can be seen from my previous posts, I don't subscribe personally to the "anything goes" freetard culture, but at the same time, I have no desire to see the internet become no more than a shop-front for old business.

Regarding the much cited "losses of billions of pounds to the creative industries", I have to ask: How many "Frankie Freebooters" will actually start paying for what they consume? I suspect that unrepentant pirates will simply find other ways of getting stuff for free.

I also have grave concerns about ACTA, and what the implications are, especially taken in conjunction with the provisions of the Digital Economy Bill.

I cannot see any legitimate recourse except for boycott, and I'll be doing everything I can to encourage a month-long boycott of commercially licensed creative works on a sufficiently large scale as to be noticeable and significant.

I urge everyone who reads this post and who agrees with my sentiment to do the same. You'll probably find me on various fora (Techcrunch, Boing Boing et. al.) trying to seed this as an idea.

Are MPs all stupid?

I suppose this is a quite technical issue but when, as reported, an MP thinks you can create a hotmail account to get back online when disconnected you wonder if they are the right people to be discussing these issues. We have had controversy with the government ignoring their scientists but I think it would be ideal if they had parliamentary panels with special skills like IT, areas of science and the MPs ask them for a condensed idiots guide to what is proposed so they can understand it before debating!

Most are, yes!

I saw a quote this morning from one Tory MP, characterising the bill, that went something like 'We got an Amstrad when we wanted an iPod'. Is he just being fatuous or does he actually fail to appreciate the difference between a PC and an mp3 player?

Those parts of the bill that deal with file-sharing demonstrate a blithe deference to our outmoded copyright laws and a complete lack of understanding of technology.

I assumed...

Look on the bright side

A lot of Reg readers are going to be making some serious cash out of VPN services....... and in the long run its probably good news for net privacy as general folk will start to take an active interest in it.

pay-to-play law making

I haven't had the time to actually read the original bill or the subsequent amendments so apologies if I seem to have fallen to the "nu meeja" hype, but the entire thing smacked of a menu of items designed to be sold to media interests for future favours and hard cash. I guess once the selling of peerages was given an airing and then the expenses gravy train was outed one of the last remaining ways for these scum that seek to rule us is to sell their roles as lawmakers - nothing new of course, but has it ever been so blatent ?

Was there anything in the whole thing, backbench opposition amendments aside, that attempt to deliver any benefit to the public as voters, tax payers and consumers ? At least the original idea of copyright was a trade - e.g. "we protect your work for 14 years and then it becomes public property for the good of all" ?

Goodies for customers

At one point the bill said that the media industry would have to look at ways of making more online material available. It didn't say what they had to do, when they had to do it, that it had to be affordable, useful or that there would be any penalties if they somehow forgot to get round to doing it.

Knowing this lot, that was one of the bits of the bill that got chucked overboard.

In short - this was a bill written by the media business, for the media business and presented to them on a silver plate by a bunch of tossers who hope to get into the media business.

30 pieces of Silver?

"It appears that now laws can be made by large and powerful lobby groups, that are prepared to pay money to an unelected politician who has some hold over the government to force those views through. There is no other way to view this other than as a poor day for democracy."

A friend in the US says this is exactly the problem with politics there, so it seems that as well as "presidential style government", and TV debates we have now fully imported yet another bad idea from the states thanks to nu Liebore. While his party in government attacks everyone else's pension plan its nice to see Mandlescum ensuring he is looked after in retirement - I wonder what his price really was?

Yup

Why not spend the money that's going to this on incentives for media companies to get their stuff online and create new business models. Just look at the options for watching movies - iTunes and....pirating.

Why not create a Steam style shop where you can buy films and have your collection available where ever you are? Oh no, deep packet inspection is obviously the way forward.

People will always pirate is this good - no, of course not. However it's like Police who go after the guy selling some drugs to his friends instead of the guys who are importing it. Going after this little guy is a waste of time and doesn't actually stop piracy (look at sweden's IPRED law) - all it does it make money off consumers (some completely innocent).

A step in the right direction is seesaw.com - basically an aggregator for UK online on-demand services.

Fail

I think you'll find that going after the 'little guys' is highly necesary since they normally inform police about the big guys! Also, dealing with the anti social behaviour of 'the little guys' is in no way a waste of time to the communities they blight. The police are there to enforce the law. Not to judge what is worth enforcing and what is not worth enforcing.

As with the pirates. Go after the little guys, find out where they're getting their shit and hopefully light up the little parasite distributing it. If this is not possible...oh well. At least you have erradicated one little pleb from poisoning the planet with their illegal activity.

Hereditary vs Crony

Don't the House of Lords get a say in all of this? For a bunch of unelected peers from privileged backgrounds they've been providing the closest thing to Common Sense (tm) recently in the palace of Westminster.

House of Lords

The Lords get final approval, but short of a miracle it will go for Royal Assent in the next couple of days.

Both Labour and Conservative front benches support this atrocity and the Lords wouldn't dare to try upsetting the 'will of the Commons' this close to an election.

There might be some muttering, but Mandelson (if he can be bothered to turn up between stage managed photo opportunities with carefully picked voters) will mutter calm words about super-affirmative procedures and how reasonable he and his successors will be when the media industry come to them asking for Google, YouTube, Apple and the rest of the Web to be taken down because Simon Cowell hasn't been able to afford a new island this year.

Two words...

Several more words.

The Parliament Act is genuinely a "three strikes" procedure. If the Lords decided to block it, there's no way the Government could turn it around three times and then invoke the Act before Parliament dissolves for the election.

So, the Lords could actually kill this one (or at least give it a good, solid boot into the post-electoral long grass), but they won't.

Mandelson's game plan

"Foster said that it “was disgraceful a bill of this complexity is given so little time”"

Which was I suspect exactly Lord Mandelson's game plan, so he forced the bill through at a time he knew he had a good chance of success.

At this point in time, the Labour MP's don't care as they are probably planning their new high paid jobs in European politics or planning their move back into high paid business jobs, where they can profit from their powerful connections in politics they have built up over the years. Whilst the MP's in other parties can deflect blame by saying it was done under Labour's final weeks of rule over us. Meanwhile their rich friends in business celebrate adding more controls over us all, as they continue to prop up their failing business plan, which is itself ultimately based on the concept of controlling the distribution of media.

Looks like they all win and we loose. :(

All this caused by an extremely two face somehow Lord who is unelected and twice thrown out in disgrace as a politician, who has somehow come from nowhere back into one of the most powerful jobs in UK politics, working as effectively number two under an unelected prime minister who refused to call an election when he moved into the job and has since taken us through one of the worst economic nightmares the country has ever seen and was directly responsible (whilst working as Chancellor of the Exchequer) for allowing the city to get away with such corrupt behavior for years before it finally crippled our country financially! Yet now they expect us to suffer another Orwellian move and insult from them all!

Its just incredible how messed up this all is, yet now we have to suffer more repercussions from their mismanagement of our country!.

So ultimately, as always, the control freaks seek more ways to control (so they can ultimately personally profit from their ability to control us all), and so now as a result, we have to suffer even more Orwellian scrutiny and control over our lives. :(

Lord Mandy in "his" house?

So did they also force this through the Lords too last night?

Normally their Lord ships are less inclined to rush through things, particularly where the "other place" is in such a hurry the Lords tend to delight in winding them up and taking as long as possible over everything.

Of course since this is "Lord Mandleson"'s own bill he would be able to jump up and down and scream at his peers.